The Worst Film Ever

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It's been a good while since I've seen a horror movie this original. Anguish is very creative, especially for its time. Its clever use of the "film-within-a-film"(often mixing both so well you don't know what's the film they're watching and which is the film you're watching). Although it's far from perfect, this is a great big breath of fresh air.The movie starts with a shy eye doctor, John, who still lives with his mother. John gets harassed by one of his patients when he gets the wrong contact lenses. His mother promises to make them suffer, unlocking a serial killer side to John. He makes a visit to the girl's house to give her the correct pair of lenses, and promptly kills her and her boyfriend. We are then shown that this is a movie, and there is an audience watching. We're introduced to two girls, one fully enjoying the movie, and the other completely horrified. As the movie continues on, and John's killings become more frequent and intensified, the girl gets more terrified, to the verge of tears. John enters a movie theater, and starts slowly killing the audience one by one. His killings become too much and the girl leaves to the bathroom. While in the stall, a man walks in. This causes her to go back to her friend to check out the bathrooms. What they don't know is that there is a real killer who has targeted their showing. He dispatches off a few of the staff with his silenced pistol, before coming into the screening. His killings start to mimic John's on screen. He grabs the girl and holds her at gunpoint, slowly slipping into deep lunacy. He talks to the screen, and his cover gets blown. The girl's friend alerts the police, who watch him waiting to make their move. They manage to get their shot and take him out, just as the other movie is ending. The girl is taken to the hospital, where she is attacked by the killer from the movie. As the credits role, it is revealed that this was all ANOTHER movie.This movie is creepy and creative. The acting is very good in most places, nothing that's completely terrible and groan worthy. A lot of the movie has an Argento feel, kinda sleazy and gritty. There's a little bit of gore, but not as much as I wanted. The kills weren't that inventive but were satisfying enough. I think this is one that should be seen by lovers of horror and even those that are just looking for something different. The characters are pretty well developed, particularly the ones in The Mommy (the movie inside the movie). Highly recommended.

Wow, this was one crazy and memorable film, to say the least, and that final shot was the icing on the cake.I've seen too many movies with great premises that wind up underutilizing them, but this one more than lived up to its own. Zelda Rubinstein creeps me out in every film I see her in, and this was no exception. Every time she appeared on screen, I wanted her to get right back off, a similar feeling I had while watching her in "Poltergeist". Except here, I got the sense that she was born to play that role. The movie just wouldn't have been the same without her....presence. In fact, she's the most memorable actor in it. The whole movie's a mind-bending experience though, and one that's best not to read about before watching. It's simply hard to look away. The piercing screams, the building suspense, the cool visual tricks, and the idea that every character in the film is in deep trouble all made me feel apart of the experience. I was completely sucked in. Hopefully other people who see it for the first time have the same sort of attachment to it. Things get chaotic fast early on, and it just continues to get more and more insane before reaching an ending I honestly didn't expect. This is the type of film that Scream 4 tried to be, but failed.R.I.P. Bigas Luna. In a way, the man was ahead of his time. Those who are fans of David Lynch and surreal films in general should definitely seek this out.

Geeky and bespectacled mama's boy orderly John Pressman (an excellent performance by Michael Lerner) is hypnotized by his evil and domineering mother Alice (a deliciously creepy portrayal by Zelda Rubinstein of "Poltergeist" fame) to embark on a vicious killing spree and pluck out the eyes of his victims. Meanwhile, the audience watching this gruesome picture in a movie theater are terrorized by another deranged maniac (a frighteningly intense turn by Angel Jove) with similar mommy issues. Writer/director Bigas Luna makes crafty and inspired use of the nifty film-with-a-film premise (at one point Pressman goes into a theater to bump off patrons just as the other lunatic in the theater begins doing the same thing!), does a bang-up job of creating and sustaining a tense, freaky, and unnerving atmosphere, and stages several of the effectively bloody and brutal murder set pieces with real flair and style (the graphic moments of gory eyeball violence are very nasty and nauseating). Moreover, this film culminates in a positively nerve-wracking last third as all hell erupts in the theater and concludes with a truly unsettling ambiguous open ending. Better still, this movie even works as an interesting, intelligent, and provocative meditation on the slippery, subliminal, and manipulative nature of cinema itself. Both Joseph M. Civit's lush widescreen cinematography and Jose Manuel Pagan's spirited shuddery score further enhance the overall fine quality of this highly recommended cult favorite.

This movie plays with the audience expectations in a level and maybe it have some characteristics of the terror genre that can be seen in a lot of movies but have some features of its own that makes the movie an original one. It's clear that this movie was not made with a big budget but the cast and crew give life to an imaginative screenplay .Rubinstein and Lerner are really great here. What surprised me of this movie are the original ideas . I will not spoil you the movie at all but after watching so many movies this one still surprise me.The Spanish director Bigas Luna directed this somehow atypical movie in his career , that usually treats themes far from the terror genre or the thriller.It's a good achievement .